Sacrifice
by Riina
Summary: Harry's thoughts on everything after OOtP, with a dark twist on his personality. Mentions self-mutilation, drugs, abuse, and whatever else jumps in there at the last second. Rating's really just a safety.
1. Blood

A/N: i'm re-reading this, and correcting the many mistakes i made. It's been so **long** since i last updated this thing!

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Chapter 1- Blood

It's all about the blood. I **used **to do it because the Dursleys were so horrible that I thought I'd prefer to take my chances with Satan than put up with them.

It's different now.

Since Sirius died I've slowly realized that blood must not be wasted like that, but used. Ancient cultures used to believe that a sacrifice of blood would cover their mortality or sinful, human natures. They would then be able to petition the Gods for something, or win favor.

Recently I noticed that, despite this big war that's going on, few people have died. There are so many Weasleys, but each one is alive...for now. Only Sirius and Cedric, and I suppose Mr. Crouch and Bertha Jorkins, have died so far. Looking closer, it hit me-every time that I've faced Voldemort, I've almost died. My blood spilt so much, that I barely had any left inside me; it was all on the ground.

Even Voldemort gets it, in a way- "_blood of the enemy, forcibly taken_"-bloodshed gave him life, and has been giving him life for years. He has had to kill to obtain any chance at getting that immortality he's craving so badly, trading other people's blood for his own. I read about people who do things like that; sacrifice blood, not for penance or to speak with a God, but for selfish, human desires, which is Dark magic at it's core.

The prophecy Dumbledore showed me kind of made me out to be this anti-Voldemort, or some polar opposite of him, and apparently, we can't exist at the same time (That's something I think the prophecy got wrong: if anyone is powerful and the opposite of Voldemort, it'll be Dumbledore). But that's beside the point, which is this: the connection between Voldemort and myself is very powerful. It might even be strong enough to interfere with the bartering of blood. When mine is shed, even just a few drops, it's enough to satisfy the Gods/Fate/whatever and the price for Voldemort gets paid- with**out** anyone dying!

It seems kind of bigheaded and far-fetched, but I think I'm really on to something with this. After all, since I have started doing my ritual after every vision and before any battle, no one else, on our side at least, has died. It may be stupid, but I cant take any risks. The Weasleys are like family to me, and if anything ever happened to them, I would never be able to forgive myself.

Now my blood is used, not wasted. I cant allow myself to cut again, and take pleasure in letting everything go, because the Gods/Fate/whatever might get confused, as one must separate with something unwillingly for it to be a sacrifice, and cutting is a release. Sometimes I feel the pressure building up, and I need to cut it out, but I cant do that anymore. I try to keep it in, but I just explode, and start yelling at everyone. That is bad enough, but that one time in Dumbledore's office, right after my idiocy at the Ministry of Magic, it exploded and I started hurling things everywhere. Half the time, I imagined Dumbledore's face when something smashed. I never thought I could be a murderer, but I remember the pressure and know that if I ever explode that badly again, and someone at possible fault is around me, I wont have a problem with murder.

Voldemort put himself in me, and that part is very violent. If it ever gets too far out of control for me to handle it, I could become just like him. That fact scares me more than **anything** I have **ever** faced.


	2. Control

A/N: i'm re-posting this stuff, cuz it needed to be edited for bad spelling and the like. The actual story is the same though.

And just to let anyone confused know-  
**emphasis  
**harrys thoughts  
_harrys thoughts on his thoughts and the like_ (did that make sense?)

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Chapter 2- Control 

People need control. To survive, people need to find a way to fight nature _and everything that can go wrong in someone's life; for everyone knows that if something can become a disaster, it **will**_. The only thing a human really can control is himself. Maybe that's why society has such strict rules about what is and what isn't socially acceptable; restraint is hard to come by, and a handbook doesn't always work. Without self-discipline, we are lost in seas of emotion and raging hormones, and become feeble and unable to function as well as we need to in order to survive.

People who lose self-control tend to kill others. _Maybe that's why Dumbledore's being such a manipulative and controlling bastard; he doesn't want people to die. Somehow I think my parents, Sirius, Cedric Diggory, and everyone else who wound up dead because of Voldemort would say "gee, Dumbledore, you are absolutely right! What a fool I have been, upset over my lack of life, when you pretending to be God has saved everybody's life!" Well, all is fair in love and war, right?_ Of course, love is what made Dumbledore foolish or something, that's what he said when he finally told me about the prophecy: he loved me to much, and it got people killed. _That's what happens when people pretend to be all-powerful, Dumbledore! _

How Voldemort has managed to fuck this up is beyond me. Losing so many times against the Order. _Of course, as the Order of the Phoenix, I guess they just rise from the ashes every time you kick their asses, so it's kinda hard to defeat them._ I just don't see why he can't find a way to wipe everyone out, though. He's butchered enough people to be considered an expert on it, so why are these **particular** people so difficult to eradicate?

What makes someone get out of a battle, and another one die? Is there a certain number or something, a quota of souls for Death to take and it doesn't matter who dies, as long as the quota is filled, or is everything pre-ordained; destined to turn out a certain way? Was Sirius going to die at the Department of Ministries when he was 36, no matter how hard anyone tried to stop it, or was his name just drawn randomly out of a box, and his fate sealed by pure **chance**? _Are my blood sacrifices really **doing **anything, or is God/Fate/whoever just messing with my head? _

A barn owl flies through my open window, offering to me the last will and testament of Sirius Black. He left everything to me, and now I have a house, several heirlooms, another bank account full of money I don't need, and a traitorous, semi-insane house elf. _If this is my compensation for losing Sirius, shame on whoever doles out such things: they should know that I would much prefer the casket made out of emeralds, thank you very much. They go better with my eyes than the rubies do._ **Honestly**; does anyone really think I care what type of jewels I have in which vault or if I want to take over the companies now, or wait until after I graduate from Hogwarts? I just want Sirius back.

Fudge saw Peter Pettigrew at the Ministry last June; he knows that the rat's alive. If Sirius had to die, the least that Fate could do in compensation is make sure that his name was cleared, but that total **asshole** of a Minister wouldn't bother to evaluate his case. _Old grudges die hard or something, but Fudge's prejudices really haven't helped the Ministry in the past and I doubt they will now. _

A part of me really wants the summer to be over, so I can see my friends and be with people who don't hit me or talk to me like I'm a piece of shit they just wiped off the bottom of their shoe. I want to be able to talk about Quiddich and steal Hermione's Potions essays with Ron, and just be a teenager. _Of course, the wiser part of me knows that they will just want to talk about Sirius, and Voldemort, and my **feelings**_. I cant take that. I know I am being watched by the Order, and I've discovered ways to find out where my bodyguards are, so I can make sure that they don't see anything I don't want them to. If I was with them, surrounded by people, it would be much more difficult to hide the parts of me that make the Sacrifice every month, the parts that went after Bellatrix Lestrange after she killed Sirius; the parts of me where Voldemort's ruthlessness and cruelty, among other things of his, dwell. I'm much safer with the Dursleys; they leave me alone, to be my own person, and don't think that someone needs to save me from myself or whatever. _Part of that might be because they would never **dream** of taking me aside and sharing any meaningful conversations or **anything **that might be misinterpreted as them suggesting to maybe possibly feel anything other than the **deepest** loathing for me_. But that's nothing new and as I am used to taking care of myself, they are showing me much more consideration by leaving me alone then the Order is by tailing me everywhere. _Of course, that strategy has worked so well, I guess they've decided to take leaves out of Fudge's book and live by philosophies that just wind up hurting people in the end, instead of saving them_.

Sometimes I walk around the park at night and try to psychoanalyze myself; to figure out exactly when I became cynical and sarcastic_. Maybe those traits were always in my personality, just buried deep inside, until my life went to **hell**, and I needed them to keep me entertained._ It's more likely that they are a part of Voldemort's personality, as the part of himself he gave to me when he killed my parents seems to be merging with my own personality a little more each day. Sometimes I can understand **why **he killed his father, and why he hates Muggles, and I keep flashing back to seeing Bellatrix Lestrange murder Sirius, and wanting to make her feel as much pain as possible. Little by little, I feel like he's taking over me, that one day I will look in the mirror, like in that song by Evanescence, and see him staring back at me, red eyes blazing.

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A/N: Sorry it took me so long to get this posted; i probly lost all of my readers, but oh well. And by the way, the song lyrics from Evanescence are: 

I look in the mirror and see your face  
If I look deep enough  
So many things inside that are  
Just like you are taking over

And the review responses are on the next chapter. L8r!

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	3. Nightmares

A/N: ok i am really sorry that the review responses didnt get out with the last chapter (i had them typed out and everything but they disappeared) and so here they are now.

_XMegz-_My first reviewer ever! You probly lost interest a long time ago, and i'm sorry, but i am trying to update more (and just as school starts, too it figures, huh?)  
_AngryBitch-_Thanks, sorry i didn't respond in the last chapter, i typed them up and everything, but now they are gone. Hope you ae still reading this, its been so long since i did anything with it.  
_Night Daughter-_really, was it that good? i suppose the question i should be asking is- is it **still** good, after i've left it to rot for a month while i wrote Musings and just came back to it after being influenced by a bunch of other people's writing styles and ideas and now **my **writing style changed? lol  
_RavissemenT-_Thanks, i've tried to kind of have stuff happen while Harry dips back and forth between his thoughts and reality, or something, i wasn't sure if i was doing it right, but if you like it, i must be doing ok.

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A/N: in some fiction, Harry is portrayed as the strong savior, able to get through anything, as long as he has...yadda yadda. I disagree-some things cant be overcome, and either way he's had a hard life. You have to kind of read in between the lines in the books and movies (they tone everything down for the 5 years olds watching the movies and reading the series) to really get bad it was for him. He's used to relying on himself and no one else. The Weasleys and hermoine helped counteract the abuse of the Dursleys, but with the war going on, he will probly revert a little to being the hardened orphan. He did in book 5, and now Sirius has died, making harry even angrier. I read an awesome fic Eyes On the Target, that does a great job of saying what I'm trying to say about harry and his relationship with the Dursleys, as well as the way others see him. And yes, this is a recommendation, because i really liked that fic. Its on my favorites list somewhere, or you can just type in the title in the search thing, if anyone is interested.

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Chapter 3-Nightmares 

I hate having nightmares. I hate seeing Voldemort drag in Muggles and torment them for his sick pleasure, and for my guilt and pain. He shows me, in vivid detail, everyone I love or care about dying in horrendous ways. I have to clench my jaw closed as hard as I can to stop from bursting into tears as I observe someone, tonight Ginny, shrieking in agony. I feel the excruciating anguish of the Cruciatus wracking her bones. I watch, helpless, as life crawls out of her mangled body in red trickles.

If I had these dreams at the Weasley's I might be held, comforted. I might cry, which, I admit, is an urge that's getting harder and harder not to give in to. I could be pathetic, for just a few moments, and no one would care. But that is not the case. I am not at the Weasley's, I live with my mother's sister, and her family **does** care about me giving in to weakness. Tonight _or is it morning?_ I failed to stifle my waking screams, and Uncle Vernon came in. He's always the feisty one of my relatives.Ironically, he is easily intimidated, but I guess the man really doesn't take to having his beauty sleep wrenched away from him by a freak._ And I feel just broken up about it._ Actually, I literally do; I think he broke one of my ribs. And I'm not sure, but I think the reason the left side of my face is so sticky is because blood is rushing out of one of the bigger wounds. _Note to self: getting attacked by someone wielding a crowbar hurts **every** time it happens._

I don't want to go to sleep; if Voldemort's done with me, my **own** head will turn on me, and shove me in that dream that I've been having for weeks now. It starts out with me in a dark place, and there's hissing all around me, egging me on. I go through some dank castle _like Dracula's castles in those Muggle movies, only with less vampire chicks_, and eventually I walk through these thick double oak doors into some kind of throne room. Voldemort is there, and we duke it out. Eventually, I beat him to a bloody pulp, and his Death Eaters encircle me. Instead of trying to kill me, they bow down and I become their Master. It never ceases to scare me. _I think about this to much; I'm a broken record_, but I cant help it. I keep coming back to our similarities and the prophecy that says I will kill him or die by his hand. It says nothing about what will happen afterwards.

Dumbledore's latest letter _twice a week, my my Dumbledore, we're **definitely** keeping in **touch** this year, aren't we?_ says that I am to be taken to Grimmauld Place tomorrow. I don't want to be there! After everything that being stuck in that house did to Sirius, can he **honestly** expect me to go back there? _Of course he can, he's Dumbledore, the wizard with all of the answers; if anyone can make a person do something of their own volition, it's him. _I just want to scream! But I did that already and I'm bleeding because of it.

I rummage through my truck to get out one of the first Muggle books that I...**found**. It's on human anatomy. With a special needle and thread that I commandeered from the hospital when Dudley broke his wrist eight years ago, I brace myself on the floor and start to stitch and dress my wounds. When I'm done, I will take a healing potion and one of the pain-relieving potions that I've been annually brewing to take with me to the Muggle world since I discovered that potions don't alert the Ministry. _The last thing I need is for the Order to realize that the amount of bruises I have should not have been added to, and start to wonder. I can just imagine what Snape would say; The Golden Boy, the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, defeats Dark Lords, but cant even defend himself against his Muggle Uncle._ That is not something I want to have brought to light. Uncle Vernon has been pretty sparse with the 'pleasure beatings' since the warning the order gave him, but he wont stop himself from hitting me for punishment. He is a nightmare in his own right, but I should be able to handle him. One day, I will be able to use magic outside of Hogwarts, and the Dursleys will pay. The visions of myself as Voldemort's conqueror and Heir flash through my eyes. _That day might also be the one that makes **me** a nightmare, if I'm not careful_.

Of course, I am already a nightmare to the parents of Little Whinging and its neighboring cities. I am the one getting their kids addicted to weed and pills, stealing needles, getting hangovers and trading in whatever I will take to get what they want. _Hey, I'm not proud of it, but I need to earn a living somehow; the Dursley's don't really care if I get fed or clothed or if I'd had supplies for school or whatnot._ Besides, the criminals know all kinds of things, and I have so many connections to the 'underworld' that I'll get the news I want immediately: if anyone disappears, I'll know-within **hours**.

It's so ironic; the Order is trying **so hard** to protect me, when it has never been necessary. I am no child. I have never been. Well, maybe I was a child when my parents were alive, but I stopped being one the moment I met the Dursleys. I can take care of myself. I don't need a parent or a guardian. Sirius understood that, and I loved him because he was a friend, an older brother. He never lied to me.  
Now that Sirius is gone, the only person who doesn't lie to me is Voldemort, but even those truths he teaches me are wrapped in falsehoods. He himself believes only half of them, the rest are said to pacify his followers. He hates Muggles, that is not a lie; the ones he knew were horrible and he is still messed up about it. I think he just wants to be important. He was brought down and made weak for so long, and now he wants to prove that he is strong and dominant. By taking over, conquering the **one** thing no one is able to, beating his only nightmare: **death**.

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A/N: i'm writing this as i go, no 2nd or 3rd drafts, its freshly out of the vapid expanse that is my skull. This chapter was a work-in-progress for over two weeks, and i had a really hard time with it, because my muses and i are at War (again). so if this is remarkably horrible, you know why. 

This will not be updated for a week or two (school is a bitch) but i doubt anyone is reading this anymore, and i'm gonna have to re-read it myself, to remember where exactly this was going with me and my computer.

Reviews are required, or Voldie will take your women and children and...well maybe the men too...and ...you **dont wanna know** what he will do.

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